The use of and development of communications has grown nearly exponentially in recent years. The growth is fueled by larger networks with more reliable protocols and better communications hardware available to service providers and consumers. In particular, an Ethernet local area network (E-LAN) service type may be used to create a broad range of services. E-LAN service types may be utilized based on one or more service level agreements (SLA) for a multipoint service.
The SLAs or other contractual obligations may specify guaranteed or acceptable thresholds for bandwidth, throughput, frame loss ratio, and other performance metrics, characteristics, or factors between customers and service providers. In many cases, the applicable communications network may include any number of service providers, access providers, legs, customers, and other elements that may complicate tracking performance or compliance for users or customers. The performance metrics are useful for trouble shooting, fault isolation, performance management (PM) threshold crossing, error identification, and other measurements that may not be shared between the many separate parties.